Cheeks Father of the Year
And the Little Squeaky Baby by Laura Corbier ~This story is a continuation of the Homeless Easter Family
Even after the babies were weaned and well on their way to being mature bunny people, Cheeks maintained his role of babysitter and snuggle king. More often than not, it would be Cheeks piled up with the kids, while Gracie would take a break for the hounding little brats. Even as Baby Jazz came up on sexual maturity and would otherwise be a rival, Cheeks still maintained his position of the main provider of emotional comfort for all three bunnies.
Cheek’s story is tightly wound into Jazzie’s story and I wouldn’t be able to tell his without fully telling Jazz’s. Very near weaning time, when Jazz began to eat solid food, we discovered a major problem. I found him one morning hunched up in the hay basket, clearly in distress. I watched him for a few moments and found that he would tense up, close his eyes then emit a painful squeak. It was like when you’d squeeze a dog’s squeaky toy. I picked him out of the hay and found his rear end all soiled with urine. To make a longer story shorter, after some examination from the vet, we discovered that poor little Jazz had a narrowing of his bowel. So every day he’d have to push and cramp in order to move along what should be a simple task for his body.
We took a wait and see attitude to see if maybe things would settle down after he was fully weaned. The vet recommended a daily dose of mineral oil to help the little guy passing his stool. A few weeks latter things had not changed, and the mineral oil made for a horrible mess on Jazzie’s back end. Throughout all this Cheeks was of immense comfort to Jazzie. After another consultation with the vet, I got the crazy idea to try a natural stool softener. We couldn’t keep Jazz on mineral oil for too long, as it would prevent him from absorbing needed minerals from his food. It was only a short term approach. So I wondered if prunes would be good. The vet figured we had nothing to loose, so only now to work out the dose.
Almost a week went by and Jazz still wasn’t having a proper movement and the squeaking was killing me to watch. I couldn’t bear this little guy’s suffering any longer. I called the vet to say I was bringing him in to be put down. The drive was agonizing for me, my heart was in my throat the entire way. I felt so horrible for what I had to do, but I knew it was the right thing.
I had to wait only a few minutes for the vet, once I got there. It wasn’t my regular vet but his partner Deb. She quickly got up to speed as far as Jazz’s situation. When I pulled him out of the carrier, the stench was horrendous. All the stress of the drive in, helped him out. His bowels had majorly let loose. Crap was everywhere. The vet held him and gently slid her finger over his tummy and the poop just piled out of him- squeak free!
“Thank goodness the prunes have finally done their job. I really didn’t feel up to euthanizing another animal today.” Deb said. So we agreed we were finally on the path of stool maintenance for Jazz.
From that time on Jazz did Ok on the prunes. He loved them, so taking them was like a treat to him. He’d have the odd bad day every month, but would soon get straitened out by the next day. The big problem we had to watch out for was hair balls. A bunny can’t vomit the way a cat does, so hair balls have to be passed in the stool. Jazz had little room for error in the bowl department, so we had to be quite watchful of his shedding.
Jazzie
With such a turbulent growing up, Jazzie became very moody and needy. Cheeks was always the one to go to Jazz any time he cried out with discomfort. Cheeks would go to him and nuzzle him with comforting kisses. Gracie and Erie would join in the bunny huddle, but it was Cheeks’s main focus in life to take care of his little guy.
Months went by and we managed well with all the extra mouths in the house. Sometimes it would be overwhelming when anyone was sick, but somehow we got through it. My recollection of timing has failed me over the years of so many critters and all their special needs, but I think it was about a year later that Cheeks began to show evidence of a serious nature. It began subtle and grew more serious within a few months. Cheeks began running sideways, unable to run in a strait line. It did not appear like Head Tilt, but he had major issue with balance. Jazzie would be crying across the room and Cheeks would start a diagonal path toward him often missing his target and having to back track. Cheeks seemed to be closer to Erie than Gracie was and his job as comforter for Jazzie also brought them closer than the relationship between mother and son. Cheeks was the centre of the universe for each of kids and for Gracie.
Off to the vet again, this time the news was not good. There was nothing wrong with his ears, so Head tilt was out. The vet deducted that it was a parasite that is often common and asymptomatic in rabbits, but Cheeks had it in the brain. Game over. We brought him back home and tried to make the best of it until he could no longer function.
Cheeks was still too dedicated to his family. By this time he’d have to run along the wall and often would prop himself up to keep from rolling over. So my heart began to break again. How many pieces could a heart break into and still come back together? Well you suck it up and do your best, and somehow you come out the other end becoming all the stronger and richer for it. When Cheeks came up to his breaking point, his deterioration was rapid. For weeks he managed and seemed almost to compensate for his failed balance, but still was a vital element in his family. I recall that very quickly he went from merely out of balance to being completely out of control. Even in his carrier he would roll, unable to determine up from down. I tried holding him, but he continued to roll in my arms, I couldn’t keep him steady. We were both out of our minds, him with fear, me with grief.
Cheeks couldn’t be held still to euthanize in traditional ways, two technicians had to restrain him while the vet had to inject directly into his heart. That was the hardest thing I ever had to endure, watching that poor animal in terror and unable to comfort him and hold him as he pasted away. Relief flooding into me after he was gone, but then I realized we were not done yet. I had read that wild rabbits have outstanding memories honed by their need for survival and escape. When one of a pair dies, the remaining one will mourn and then wither in their lack of understanding of where their mate has gone. The vet gave us the option of a necropsy, but I thought it was pointless. Cheeks was dead and if any others in his family were infected I didn’t want to know until I had to. So be brought him to his family so they could say goodbye.
The intellectual part of me watching this process was amazed, but at the same time, the emotional part of me could barely stand the sadness that I witnessed. We lay Cheek’s limp body in the centre of the room where they had all played and been together. Gracie, his girl came over to him first. She appeared to quickly come to understand what was going on. When she sniffed at his hind end, she jolted back from him, but soon settled down in front of him just looking. Jazz was the next to approach his dad. He went up to him just like any other day, nudging him begging for a kiss, but he just lay there. Jazz nudged again, you could see the frustration on his face. Cheeks would never wait for Jazz to ask twice. Now Jazzie tried to crawl underneath Cheek’s face (the bunny on the bottom always gets the kiss) but still no response. Jazzie just sat there staring at his dad when Gracie finally came over to him, putting her head over his neck and comforting him with stillness. I watched through my own tears from the edge of the room. I wanted them to have their space and the time to understand. Dave was with me through all this and he cried as much as I did and loving them as much as I did.Erie was the last one to approach Cheeks, but she didn’t seem to connect with what was going on. You could see she was oblivious to the reality, she was focused on missing out on the bunny huddle. We left Cheeks with them for about a half hour, then we took him out to the garden and buried him beside our beloved Moseph and another nameless rabbit that wandered into our yard to die.
Erie never did get it and we could see her looking for him for several weeks, at a loss to understand where her daddy went. Gracie and Jazz on the other hand were quiet and sad looking for a few days, but then carried on to a normal routine. Erie took over going to comfort Jazzie when he cried and Gracie became a bit of a loner for while (she earned the new title The Widow Gracie) then became bonded with Erie. Jazzie was always the third guy out when not muscling in on the smooching.
I was amazed finding a bunch of bunnies carrying on with a deeper family bond than the one that I experienced as a child. But after watching the passing of a vital member of their unit, I will never doubt the presence of emotion and a remarkable level of reasoning in a simple animal. Rabbits are such frail little creatures with such a naturally short life time, but I am constantly amazed by them and enthralled with their unique personalities. I will never be without the love of a good bunny and honestly I haven’t met a bunny I didn’t instantly love.
Although rabbits are prone to such horrendous ailments with such a sensitive system, I do find them to be forces of nature not easily subdued or tamed. They appear to allow us into their reality, not joining us in ours. I admire their complex forms of communication often physical and psychic in nature as they challenge me to quiet my world enough to join them on a more spirit level of intuition and observation. They exhibit emotions often like people with bipolar, but again this adds to their charm with such extremes and compulsions. I am grateful to have these wonders that keep me rooted in nature. To top it all off, they all so damn cute I can barely stand it. I’ll never have children of my own and I’m grateful that I have found a way to allow that maternal part of myself to flourish and have purpose.
Tags: death, rabbit father
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